Ukraine's troops pack their bags and leave their bases in Crimea

Defeated but still proud, Ukraine's troops in Crimea melt away as Russian
forces look on

Ukrainian servicemen defend the entrance of the Ukrainian navy headquarters in SevastopolPhoto: AP

By Roland Oliphant, Sevastopol

6:38PM GMT 19 Mar 2014

Russian flags were already fluttering over the gates when Vitaly, a 31-year-old lieutenant, carried his personal effects past the masked Russian troops who had taken up positions inside the place that was once his base.

"We did our duty to the last. We stayed till the end," he said as he and several comrades waited for wives, parents and friends to meet them.

The Ukrainiannavy's headquarters occupies a plot of land behind a lot of car-service businesses and a bus depot on the edge of Sevastopol – a far cry from the sumptuous 19th century villa in the city centre that houses the Russian Black Sea Fleet headquarters.

For more than two weeks, the more than 500 servicemen and women who work here – like their colleagues in military installations across the Crimean peninsula – have been locked in an uneasy standoff with invading Russian troops.

That came to an end on Wednesday morning, when unarmed volunteers from the local pro-Russian self-defence militia forced their way into the base, arrested the admiral in command, and demanded the Ukrainians quit.

After heavily armed Russian regular forces also arrived, the game was up. Following negotiations led by the commander of the Russian Black Sea fleet, servicemen and women began to pack their uniforms and belongings and leave their place of work for good.

It was a humiliating end to the two-week standoff. But impoverished, outgunned and surrounded though they were, officers and ratings here took some comfort that they had made every show of defiance they could before they finally gave in.

The upper storeys of barracks and office buildings inside the perimeter are still adorned with defiant graffiti spray-painted by the Ukrainians.

"We won't change countries for money," one slogan reads.

That is a references to invitations Ukrainian servicemen say they have received to join the Russian armed forces and receive significant pay rises.

The black spray paint on another building says "we guard the peace." And that is another point of pride for the troops here.

"Revolutions, coups, annexations – none of this ever happens without blood. And our goal was to stop that happening. So we locked the weapons away straight away," said Vitaly.

That decision was partly one of prudence – any attempt to resist with force could have started a bloodbath that would only end one way, and provide Russian forces with the pretext they need to finish off the occupation with armed force.

But it is also born of close relations that make the confrontation here fraught with complications. Many of these men have close friends in the Russian armed forces. Some have even served in both the Soviet and Russian armies.

Like thousands of Ukrainian servicemen and women serving in bases across the Crimean peninsula Vitaly is now looking at an uncertain future.

As wives, friends and family members gathered to pick up the evicted officers and ratings outside the navy headquarters, much conversation turned to what would happen next.

"What's next? All we can say is 'we'll see'," said a Sevastopol-born officer who declined to give his name, but said he had served in the Soviet and then Ukrainian armed forces for 25 years. "But I don't want to go anywhere – this is my home."

Asked whether he would accept invitations to sign up to the Russian armed forces, he scowled and said "would you?"

"What if Norway decided it wanted a Danish island and just made up some referendum to justify an invasion? It is as mad as that," he said. "Everyone has friends and family on both sides, but Russia is going to lose a lot of respect among Ukrainians for this."

Others said they were resigned to leaving Crimea for good.

"I was born in Russia, I speak Russian, and I've lived here so long that I consider myself local," said Oxana, a contract servicewoman whose husband is also an officer serving at the base.

"But I would rather go and live in Ukraine, even Western Ukraine, than stay here. I don't want to live in Russia," she said. "The referendum was a farce. None of my friends voted because we were all against it in principle."

But many of the volunteers who evicted them showed little remorse for the eviction.

"They are Banderists, and they cannot stand here," said a shaven headed man in a bomber jacket who described himself as a member of the self defence units of Sevastopol. "They can go and have their navy in Odessa or somewhere. But there will be no Ukrainian forces in Crimea. No way."